


won't waste my love on a nation

by endquestionmark



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:23:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: “Well,” Faraday says. “Everything you need to know about the finer emotions, you can get from learning to shoot.” Teddy opens his mouth, plainly exasperated, and Faraday holds up one finger. "If you would just let me finish, just one time, you might actually come away a little wiser for once. Are you going to give me a fair shot?"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corbomites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbomites/gifts).



> All blame and credit to Mandy, who demanded "the fic where Faraday teaches Teddy other non-literal gun things" and summoned me directly from the abyss. Arguably this also contains literal gun things, albeit with a generous helping of double entendre. What can I say. Anticipate the bang, as it were.

Teddy, sullen as ever, comes to find Faraday later — when the fire has burned down to shifting embers and the sky is infinite above them with the cold pinprick glow of stars — and sits beside him in silence, blanket wrapped around his slumped shoulders.

Faraday waits for him to talk first. He isn’t in the mood for more teenage sulkiness, no matter how old Teddy claims to be, and he doesn’t want to give the kid an excuse to flounce off all over again. From halfway up the ridge, he has a decent view across the basin — tumbled rock and scrub trees alike lost in the darkness like low ground to rising water — as a thumbnail sliver of moon creeps over the horizon.

"You take this kind of job often?" Teddy says, finally, when the silence has gone on for so long that Faraday thinks that he might have to break it after all.

"Only when I know I'll get a good story out of it," Faraday says, not looking at Teddy. "What about you? Carry torches for widowed women much?"

He can tell without looking when Teddy tenses up, feels it in the sudden silence and the pressure of Teddy's glare. "Ain't carrying anything," Teddy says. "Just trying to help a good friend find a little peace."

"Sure." Faraday nods, amicable. "Nothing to do with that kicked-puppy face you keep putting on, then, or the way you get skittish as a colt when she pays you even the slightest bit of mind."

"Ain't nothing to do with that," Teddy says, jaw set, and lapses into silence again.

Faraday shrugs. "Just asking." He looks back out into the dark, flattened now by moonlight into a charcoal sketch, the pitted silvering of an old mirror. "If it was, I might be able to give you a few pointers, is all."

"Why?" Teddy says, sardonic. "Doesn't seem like you've got a sincere bone in your body."

"If you're referring to my intentions in giving you advice, I assure you that my aim is not to see you humiliated," Faraday says. "Much," he adds, after a moment's thought. "And I'll have you know that I've carried a torch or two in my time."

Teddy looks down. "Sure," he says, that same awful disappointment creeping into his voice. Faraday doesn't mind letting people down much, not when it means making a quick getaway or living to bluff his way through another day, but what gets under his skin about Teddy is his untested certainty. If the kid has any calluses at all, they come from working the land, from the ploughshare rather than the sword, but for some reason Teddy sees fit to judge him as an equal and find him wanting.

Faraday can't imagine that he was ever as young and self-righteous. Cocky, maybe, arrogant and overconfident in his own ability, but that had gotten knocked out of him; if Teddy is lucky, the same will happen to him. If he isn't, he might go on forever thinking that he knows best and never learning any better. Faraday might not sleep easily, but at least he knows why. If Teddy ever finds himself disturbed by uneasy dreams, he might not even have that comfort.

"Forget this," Faraday says under his breath. "You know what? Never mind. Suit yourself. You might need this more than me after all." He pulls Teddy's bottle of whiskey from his pocket, tosses it at him so that he can't take the chance to fire back. "You want to wallow, go right ahead and be my guest."

It always feels like that, is the thing, and Faraday remembers being exactly the same way about a particular pretty smile, with a quick wit to boot. Every young fool with a sweetheart and a pulse thinks that nobody else has ever fallen in love or felt the same way, and none of them even consider that they might just be the latest in a long tradition of self-deception. After the first time, most learn better — Faraday prides himself on never making the same mistake twice, and this had been no exception — but Teddy is still untested and untaught.

Emma might be heartbroken, but she is twice as wise as Teddy for it. Best Faraday can see, his heart is set on happiness, while her aim is more along the lines of Biblical recompense. Only one of them is likely to get what they want.

Teddy turns the bottle over in his hands, not looking at Faraday.

"So you do this all the time," he says. "Just ride off on whatever adventure catches your eye."

Faraday nods. "Sounds about right."

"And you don't have some plan?" Teddy asks. "To ever settle down, buy a plot of your own, that sort of thing?"

"Not likely," Faraday says, laughing.

Teddy stares at him for a moment. "Oh."

"Look, don't feel bad, kid," Faraday says. "Some of us are meant to raise a brood and grow old surrounded by screaming babies and some of us don't intend to do anything of the sort. Never saw much appeal in that kind of thing, myself."

For a minute, neither of them say anything. Faraday wonders what Teddy is thinking; he wonders if this is the first that Teddy has ever heard of another way to live, endless sky above and sunset ahead, untethered and — one day — unmourned. He wonders if Teddy feels the sudden weight of the life that he wants, settled like shackles at his feet the way Faraday had the first time he had seen so much horizon at once.

He wonders if Teddy pities him. Sometimes, when he spends too long in one place, Faraday sees it in the eyes of the townspeople, the regulars, who know where they belong. Their misplaced sympathy used to itch at him, a sentiment in which he never wanted any part, and he wanted to ask if they had ever seen just how much more there was to the world, just how much they were missing.

If Teddy does, then there isn't much that Faraday can do for him. He might be young, but nobody is ever so young that they can't wonder it might be like to have another life, another choice, another road.

“And you don’t get lonely,” Teddy says, finally, still not looking at Faraday. His voice is brusque, but it falls flat, undercut by something that sounds a little like youth and a lot like yearning. Faraday knows that it’ll get knocked out of him sooner rather than later, whether they succeed or not. Even in a town with a name as pretty as Rose Creek, he’ll have more than his fair share of heartbreak and hardship, traded in for even that small share of the sky and the sunset.

“Don’t see how I could.” Faraday is careful not to sound too condescending, inasmuch as he’s capable, not to lean too much on the simple fact of it. He might have made some choices he wouldn’t make again, given the chance to start over, but he wouldn’t take a single one of them back either. “Like I said. Never saw much appeal in any other path.”

After a minute, Teddy looks up and says: “Guess I might be able to use some advice.”

“Look,” Faraday begins, and Teddy interrupts him.

“Don’t make me ask twice, all right?” he says, gaze hot and humiliated. Bless the young, Faraday thinks, amused, and their ability to make asking for advice look as painful as having a tooth pulled.

“All right, all right,” he says. “Since you insist. For a share of that blanket, I might be able to come up with something.”

Teddy rolls his eyes, but he shifts a little closer and offers Faraday a corner of the blanket. Faraday pulls it as close around his shoulders as he can muster — not much, given Teddy’s angularity and his own bulk, but still better than nothing — and gets himself settled.

“Well?” Teddy says, still managing to be standoffish even at such close range.

“Well,” Faraday says. “Everything you need to know about the finer emotions, you can get from learning to shoot.” Teddy opens his mouth, plainly exasperated, and Faraday holds up one finger. "If you would just let me finish, just one time, you might actually come away a little wiser for once. Are you going to give me a fair shot, or should I just let you go on your merry way? And don't say yes on account of me. If you'd rather muddle through on your own, that won't cost me a single second of serenity."

"It's all the same to you, isn't it," Teddy mutters, but stays put.

Faraday shrugs, shifting the ratio of blanket a little in his favor. "If you don't think that's the case, then it's no wonder you aren't getting anywhere." He digs his fingernails into the weave of the fabric so that he won’t go for his guns, give them away with the click of a hammer or the turn of a cylinder. “First things first, since you still don’t know the first thing about hitting the broad side of a barn. Don’t be afraid of the recoil.”

“You don’t mean that literally, right,” Teddy says, and Faraday almost laughs.

“Sure I do. Call it two for one, kid,” he says. “Anything worth having has a kick that’ll take some getting used to, but you’ll live. Just hold steady and you’ll be able to handle it much better than if you try and get away from it. So far so good?”

Teddy doesn’t look at him. “Sure.”

“Second lesson,” Faraday says, and wonders if the kid is blushing. “Don’t anticipate the shot, yeah?” He sights down the barrel of an imagined rifle, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders. “Do that and you’ll pull your aim down. May as well throw the gun for all the good it’ll do you. No,” he says, and his breathing slows, the way it always does when the blood is singing in his ears. “Look at the target and line it up. Whatever you want? Get that in your sights.”

He glances at Teddy out of the corner of his eye, and if the kid wasn’t flushed before, he certainly seems unable to look away — eyes wide and dark and a little lost, a little confused, but no less intent — now. “Shouldn’t be like pulling the trigger, when you do,” Faraday says, when Teddy finally meets his gaze, and finds himself lost for words. “More like just holding yourself real still, when all you want is to surge forward, and then fitting all of that movement into half a second and six pounds of pressure. If you need any more than that, then you’re taking too long.”

“Are we still talking about women?” Teddy says. “Or guns?”

“You tell me,” Faraday says, letting the pretense of the rifle fall away. “All I know is what works for me—“ and, by the look of it, for Teddy as well, but Faraday isn’t the sort to push. He provokes, sure, and gets himself into trouble more often than not, and he keeps talking when he shouldn’t, but that’s different: “—And I’ve never had a complaint,” he adds, and that seems to do it.

Teddy looks at him and says, very quietly: “Can I try?”

“Suit yourself,” Faraday says. “Just keep quiet about it.” On nights like this one, with only the unforgiving stone and sky for company, Faraday has found comfort and warmth in his own touch more often than not. He and Teddy are far enough from the others — asleep after first watch anyway — that there isn’t much call for discretion regardless, but before Faraday can draw breath to comment Teddy’s hands are at his belt, clumsy with what Faraday guesses to be more a matter of nervousness than cold.

Teddy’s voice is shaky when he says: “No, you keep yourself quiet. I’m a little busy here.”

It takes Faraday a minute to catch on, and by then Teddy has one hand around his cock — shaking more from fright than cold, thank God, as it turns out — and Faraday bites at the inside of his own cheek. This kid won’t make it half a day, he thinks. Teddy is earnest to a fault, and has no idea that all his sightlines are open, and thinks that he knows everything, and all his cynicism does for him is get him into one misunderstanding after another.

If Faraday was a better man, he might correct Teddy, push him off and leave him to his lovelorn brooding. If Faraday was a worse man, he wouldn’t say a word.

"No, not — I meant — shit, all right," Faraday says, executing a mental bootlegger's turn at high speed and coming out all in favor. "Yeah, like that — but pretend you know what you're doing, like — _yeah_. Just like that.”

At least Teddy isn’t too proud to take suggestions, even if he’s a little too quick to follow. Faraday doesn’t bother to tell him much — just bites his lip and does his best to keep quiet, even when Teddy gets a little too rough, even when he forgets that it isn’t about him — and lets him learn for himself. Everyone has to realize at least once that they’re being selfish, that they might want to pay a little more attention, and Faraday doesn’t mind if Teddy takes it out on him. He can take it, and truth be told he almost prefers it this way; Faraday is easy like that.

He takes the good with the bad, and presses the back of his hand to his mouth as he gets close, watching — the awkward angle of Teddy’s wrist and the wetness smeared across his thumb, the slip of his cock between Teddy’s fingers — and waiting, waiting, holding himself still.

“Come on,” Teddy hisses, finally impatient, and Faraday forces out a laugh.

“What did I tell you about not anticipating,” he says, words exhaled on half a desperate breath, and nearly chokes when Teddy tightens his grip. “Now you’re getting it.”

“Half a second,” Teddy says, almost cruel now, and doesn’t give Faraday time to catch his breath. “Yeah, I got it the first time.”

From there, it’s only a matter of time — granted permission to be vicious, Teddy proves himself a quick study, and never gives Faraday a minute of respite after that — until Faraday is coming over Teddy’s hand, hips working helplessly, making a mess of both of them. “Fuck,” he breathes, deep draughts of cold night air stinging his throat. “Don’t let it go to your head, kid, but _fuck_.”

“Guess I didn’t need that many lessons after all,” Teddy says, pulling the blanket back around his shoulders, and doesn’t seem sure what to do next. Of course he has no idea; of course he doesn’t know what to do with the space between them, redolent of sex and sweat and the mess of spunk on his hand, streaked up his wrist. He looks just as young as he is, without the years added by righteous fury or desperate longing, and Faraday sighs.

“If you’d just let me finish for once,” he says, doing up his trousers and fastening his belt, and settles himself to lean over Teddy’s shoulder, bracketing him in. "I meant that you should try on yourself, some other time.”

Teddy looks at him, caught between disbelief and what Faraday thinks might be outrage, and he goes on before either can take root. “Oh, come on, don't look at me all wounded like that. I owe you one, don't I?” Faraday rests his hand just above Teddy’s waist, over the arch of his ribs, to feel the way that his breath catches, the faint trembling that picks up as he slides his palm down along the angle of Teddy’s hip, the reflexive flutter of muscle. “Be a shame not to take the opportunity to give you a few extra pointers while we have the time.”

Faraday always learns best by doing, himself, but Teddy could use a better example if his work is anything to go by. When Faraday takes him in hand, he almost flinches, and so Faraday starts slow, with plenty of time to wonder — if anyone has ever done this for him before, at least this well; if Teddy knows what he might be starting, with Rose Creek; if Teddy even knows what he’s starting for himself — before he picks up the pace.

Thing is, Faraday doesn’t see how Teddy can go back to any sort of ordinary life after this, inasmuch as such a thing exists in a land where a single bad growing season can level an entire town. Teddy might think otherwise, but Faraday had thought the same once as well. The emptiness of the horizon, and its scale, have an awful draw of their own — like the moaning of the wind, the way that it catches in the ribs of those who are so inclined and tugs at their ankles, a yearning for that same loneliness and a certain hunger of the spirit — and Faraday doesn’t see how Teddy will ever shake that, if it finds a home in him.

Teddy whines, bucking up into his hand, and Faraday shushes him, covers his mouth. “You’re all right,” he says, and slows down until Teddy nods frantically. “There you go.”

Faraday can’t help showing off, either, given the chance. He takes his time, sees what Teddy likes and what he’s less certain about, and leans on the latter when he can. Hopefully he can leave Teddy with more questions than answers, since one way or another the kid will have a lot of time to himself shortly.

Either way, Faraday has never been fond of safe bets. He makes Teddy work for it, letting his calluses catch right under the head of the kid’s cock and thumbing at his slit. Faraday smears wetness everywhere and follows after to soothe with the hollow of his palm, which is the last thing that Teddy wants if his ineffectual thrashing is anything to go by.

Finally, when it seems that he’ll either bite or break, Faraday lets him go — gives him half a second of uninterrupted pressure and movement, lets him surge forward into Faraday’s grip — and that does it. Teddy gasps and comes, shaking as if he can’t quite remember how to draw breath, and then slumps back against Faraday.

Faraday, because he can never quite help himself, wipes his hand on Teddy’s blanket.

“Jackass,” Teddy mutters, and Faraday grins.

“Guess I won’t wait around for a thank you,” he says, and deliberately arranges the blanket around Teddy’s shoulders. “But hey, I’m a generous man. You’re very welcome regardless of that.”

He turns back towards their camp — the fire collapsed into ash by now, the others no more than huddled blankets and faint curls of breath — to finish out his watch somewhere a little more hospitable and a little further from the call of the horizon, the siren song of the lonely places in between, but Teddy clears his throat.

“Thank you,” he says, trying for gruffness and failing entirely, a puppy not yet grown into its growl.

Faraday grins, touching the brim of his hat. “My pleasure,” he says, and leaves Teddy to look out at the sky — to weather the wind and the stars and the sympathetic hollowness that it stirs in him — and to come to his own covenant with the endless onward climb of the land.

**Author's Note:**

> I know the trigger pull on the SAA isn’t precisely six pounds of pressure, but I hope you’ll allow me — like Faraday — a certain degree of rhetorical flourish.


End file.
